Corrugated metal plate is commonly used in the civil engineering field and construction field to produce structures having desired strength characteristics. For example, corrugated metal plate is commonly used to create tubular structures (e.g., round or elliptical pipe) and arch-shaped structures (e.g., semi-circular or half-ellipse culverts). Typically, the structures are formed using corrugated metal plate members, all of which have the same width, connected end-to-end and side-by-side.
This typical configuration results in structures where some portions of the plate members overlap to form seams that are three to four plates thick. For example, if the plate members are not staggered, then the seam is four plates thick at corner junctions where four plate members meet. Or, if the plate members are staggered in break-joint fashion, then the seam is three plates thick along T-shaped joints where the sides of two plate members joined end-to-end meet a third plate member.
When two corrugated metal plates with uniform-sized corrugations are stacked together along a seam in a plate structure, they tend to nest imperfectly as opposed to forming a neat seam, which can make assembly difficult because pre-fabricated holes in the plate members designed to receive bolts, rivets, or other connectors to secure the seam will often not align properly. These consequences of imperfect nesting are magnified along seams with three to four plate “pile-ups.” This leads to extra work in the field to drill new holes or make other accommodations to assemble the structure. The pile-ups also create irregularities in the general shape of the structure and constitute a waste of material along the seams. Efforts to avoid these problems and improve alignment through higher tolerance control and more precise manufacturing methods add extra time and/or cost to the manufacturing and assembly process.